Kirby Smart offers advice to Lane Kiffin amid coaching carousel rumors

Ole Miss‘ Lane Kiffin is a hot commodity in the coaching carousel right now, with schools like Florida and LSU reportedly interested in hiring him. During an appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart revealed his advice would be for Kiffin.

“Be where your feet are, which I think he is,” Smart said. “He’s got a really good team, and they got a chance to do something really special. And it’s so hard. As coaches, everybody talks about how hard it is to win now and you don’t know when you’re going to have that opportunity again.

“He’s sitting in a really good position right now to have a playoff run and have a playoff team. And I think he’s worried about that.”

Kiffin is having his best season yet at Ole Miss. The Rebels are 9-1 and just two wins away from securing their first ever appearance in the College Football Playoff.

Kiffin in his sixth season as Ole Miss’ head coach. He’s amassed 53-19 overall record and a 30-17 mark in conference play during his time in Oxford. Prior to Ole Miss, Kiffin’s longest tenure at the helm of a program was at USC, where he spent four seasons.

Kirby Smart understands the value of sticking with a program. In his sixth season at Georgia, Smart won his first national championship as a head coach. The Bulldogs won the national title again the following year.

Now, Kiffin will look to follow suit. After all, it won’t be easy to lure Kiffin away from Ole Miss. His daughter attends the school and his son plays football at a local high school. For now, Kiffin is simply focused on defeating Florida this weekend.

“Our guys are really excited about this matchup,” Kiffin said. “They’ve put themselves in position to play for a lot, so we’ve got to get to 1-0 and then we have a bye. It’s kind of like a one-game season here — put everything into it, no matter what it takes, and get to 1-0. Rest up and worry about the games after that. 

“This will be a challenging matchup. … They’ve played excellent defense for most of the season — and have a quarterback that’s extremely talented and a phenomenal running back, that’s a recipe to know that, hey, they can beat you at any time. We’re going to have to play really well to get ourselves to 1-0.”

Ole Miss and Florida will square off at 7 p.m. ET on Saturday. The game will air live on ESPN.